Here’s a short story I wrote a while back, the first I ever had published, in the second issue of the now defunct Great Ape Journal. I was working on a different, longer, still unpublished project at the time, getting frustrated, and decided to see if I could just get anything into print. It’s mostly a compilation of the sort of dumb jokes I post on twitter. I wrote it in the spring or summer of 2020, at the height of the pandemic, and reading it back now some of it feels a bit date, a little too dependent on culture war stuff. Also a lot of other little things I’d like to change. An abridged version was later published in a small anthology in 2023. Special thanks to Great Ape’s Nels Challinor and Dale Hall for their thoughtful edits.
Boy, I tell ya, this quarantine stuff has got me going shack wacky.
Just the other day, I lost my temper with my daughter, Prepper Bucket. Shouted at her to shut the door, told her we aren’t heating the outside. You know what she said to me? She said, “Daddy, my lifespan will be unnaturally shortened precisely because we've been heating the outside at unsustainable levels since the onset of the industrial revolution.”
Just like that.
I’d never spoken to her like that before and she’d never spoken to me like that before and I realized something had to be done. It’s like I said when she was born, she’ll always be my little girl unless she turns into a lib. And all that global warming talk sure sounds like lib shit to me.
I knew I had to do something but I didn’t know what. And then the riots kicked off down in the States and it hit me. I had to defend that which I hold most dear. Family, friends, community. So I put Prepper in the truck (2014 Chevrolet Silverado, with full camo wraps) and we went down to the retail strip on 97th Street. It’s got all the essentials of civilization: Boston Pizza, Shoppers Drug Mart, a BMO, Pizza 73, Canadian Brewhouse, multiple gas stations and Tim Hortonses, Sleep Country Canada, Benjamin Moore, Tommy Gunn’s barbers, all them stores. Western culture. If antifa was going to attack anywhere, it’d be there.
I could feel it.
And the thing is, and I don’t say this lightly, but I actually have a bit of a personal enmity against them. I’ve gone back and forth with the CEO of Antifa Canada on the Internet. Mostly on Facebook, but once on Reddit, and I’ve found some of his YouTube videos and left some scathing comments there. I’d like to say there’s a bit of a mutual respect between us, like between Rommel and Patton or Pacino and De Niro, but the fact is, I don’t really think much of him. Be a man and take off your mask if you’re going to protest.
So we packed up the truck and headed out, set up a checkpoint first in one parking lot, then in another. I had a bunch of Boston Pizza gift cards I’d taken from work so we were never short of Boston Brute sandwiches or cactus-cut fries. But if you think I was doing some PG-13 tailgater, you’d better think again. Prepper’s got a potato cannon we built for her science fair and I’ve got my favourite hunting weapon, a Bren gun that Prepper’s granddaddy used during the war to take out the original Antifa––the Nazis.
The first couple of days were quiet. About the only action we saw was when the manager of the Sobey’s came out and asked us to stop aiming at customers and rolling coal in the parking lot. We reached a pretty good deal not to aim at his customers and to wait until closing to drill tactical vehicular maneuvers. But still, we stayed vigilant. Antifa is always out there, lurking.
Sometimes, their mask is no mask at all. Sometimes they pose as shoppers. I have to admit they’ve mastered urban camouflage the way we conservatives have mastered outdoor camouflage. It’s like Prepper says, sometimes Antifa are hiding right under your nose.
Prepper’s a good kid.
Sometimes people ask me about her name, which I admit is a bit different and mostly my fault. You see, on the day she was born my wife wanted to talk alone with her P90X instructor about her postnatal exercise routine and so I got stuck with paperwork and the nurse kind of rushed me. Honestly, it makes me glad the conservatives are laying off nurses during a pandemic. Don’t rush a man on the day of his daughter’s birth. But anyway, yeah, I was watching a lot of Infowars and televangelist stuff at the time because of Obama and I kept seeing ads for these prepper buckets, you know like a big five gallon bucket full of oatmeal or southwest beans and rice, for emergencies. And all I could think about was how I wanted my daughter to be prepared no matter what life threw at her, you know?
So that’s how my daughter, Prepper Bucket, got her name. I actually like it. It has a sort of innocence like from the sixties before things went to shit––and no ominous Mansonite undertones whatsoever.
She’s a good kid, but she’s growing up fast and the world is full of bad influences.
Truth be told, that comment about global warming wasn’t the first time I’ve suspected her of succumbing to liberalism’s pernicious influence.
A few weeks back we’d decided to have a special guest over for dinner, my wife’s Crossfit trainer. Brayden’s a good guy, I like him more than the P90X guy, spin class guy, Tae Boe guy, Zumba guy, yoga chick, Barre guy, and all the other personal trainers she’s had over the years. We thought it was a good idea to have him over because at the time I’d been taking Prepper to anti-Covid19 Lockdown protests to try and teach her the difference between the good kind of protest—like this, Wexit, anything for pipelines or against Trudeau—and the bad kind—all that lib shit. You might not remember, but back then social distancing was tyranny. I’m more supportive of it now because of the American riots, obviously.
But yeah, I was telling Brayden about how we waste all this money on foreigners, giving aid to Africa when we should be looking after our own poor and needy and all that there stuff when Prepper butted in and said I had it all wrong. She said it wasn’t an either/or thing and that we had more than enough wealth to do both. She said if anything, a lot of foreign food aid was actually disguised welfare to our beloved prairie farmers, as the government was buying up their surplus crops and taking them off the domestic market. What’s more, she said, foreign aid was what had kept a lot of countries from developing their own agricultural sectors. If we really wanted to help them we’d be helping them establish the means of production instead of giving them our leftovers, that it was no different than the way I gave Diefenbaker (our golden retriever lab cross) the scraps of my dinner.
I tell ya I just about lost it.
I don’t remember what I said, but before I knew it my wife was upstairs crying her eyes out. So Brayden went up to comfort her while I spoke with Prepper.
“Honey,” I said, “I just don’t know where you’re gettin all these crazy ideas from lately. I’m worried you’re gonna turn into a liberal or something. It was one thing with the rap music, that I can understand, but to have my little baby girl turn into a John Kerry… I just don’t think I could take it.”
“Rap music?” she asked.
“Yeah, you know. That black fella you got the poster of in your room. He’s Chapo Trap House or whatever?”
“Oooooh,” she said with a laugh. “No daddy, that’s Thomas Sankara. He was in a band called Tout-à-Coup Jazz for a while, but then he got into politics.”
At this point, I sort of zoned out. It was just kid stuff as far as I was concerned. An African version of a boy band or K-pop group. It’s always some new thing with the kids, or I guess a retro affectation in this case, but it’s the same as it always is. I guess this Tommy Sankara fella even had his own Lennon/McCartney split with a bandmate by the name of Blaise something-or-other.
The important thing for me is that she promised me Tommy wasn’t a liberal.
I don’t know what he is exactly, but if he wears camouflage and cares about farmers, that’s good enough for me.
Later on, when Brayden was done consoling my wife––and I tell ya, the way she gets crying in there sometimes, moaning and sobbing, it really takes a while for Brayden to calm her down and I’m grateful to him for it––he offered me a bit of advice about the whole thing. He said that maybe my anxiety ultimately stemmed from the fact that my work has always been an abstraction that in no way contributes to society. How is assistant manager for the best selling jet ski dealership in St. Albert, Alberta not contributing to society? When people are enjoying the May Two-Four long weekend out at the cottage that’s because of me. He said, “put that aside and think about your old job.”
“I used to be a safety officer in the oil sands, but the accident wasn’t my fault,” I told him.
“No, but your job wasn’t to produce anything or even provide a service. It wasn’t even about protecting people, it was just a way for the oil company to avoid liability when something eventually went wrong.”
Now quite frankly, I thought he was overstepping his bounds there. And what’s more he was wrong. Don’t let the town name fool ya, we’re proud protestants in St. Albert and we follow Pastor Haines’ prosperity gospel, so the fact that I have a 6,000 square foot home and a rack that lets me put two quad bikes (his and hers) on the back of my truck is proof in itself that I’m a good person or whatever it was Brayden was saying.
That’s not me bragging, that’s just a fact.
I mean, I’ve got plenty of problems of my own. Take my wife for example. There’s the cultural difference there. She’s not from around here, if you catch my meaning. She’s from Sherwood Park, Alberta. It’s a whole other exurb. I mean, yeah, she’s a two-time Cold Lake jet ski champion, local Instagram influencer and a ten-outta-ten smokeshow but it’s not easy. We really owe a lot to Brayden, who’s been so happy to help us bridge the cultural divide.
Brayden and my proud conservative values. Yes, whether it’s starting Wexit, our own separatist movement, or protesting that treasonous drama teacher Truedope, Alberta is conservative country and that’s just a fact. I must’ve voted two or three times in the last leadership election, that’s how much I value my, you know, values.
Which brings me back around to Prepper.
If she really wants to be a liberal, you know, that’s her choice. But it’s a tough old go to be anything other than a pipeline-loving, coal-rolling, camo-wearing douchebag in Alberta. It’s not like out east where you can just spend half the year on welfare and half the year protesting pipelines. (Where do they think welfare comes from? Pipelines!)
I don’t like to admit this, but sometimes I wish she could be more like Ben Shapiro. You spend ten minutes listening to that little boy and you can tell he knows what’s important in life: worrying about the deficit and calling his grandma. And you know he’s a good debater because he talks so fast, even when he’s flustered.
I think defending the parking lots was good for us, even if some days we didn’t do a whole lot but listen to a playlist we’d curated together, half Stompin’ Tom Connors and half k.d. lang.
I was in such a good mood I even decided to give Canadian Tire a second chance. I’d gone sour on them after they sent out some cease and desist letters regarding my campaign to get the Canadian government to reevaluate Canadian Tire money (CTM RV). Basically the plan is a lot like the Iraqi dinar revaluation scheme (IQD RV) but with a slightly less legitimate currency. If only the damn politicians in Ottawa would get off their asses and study my monetary proposal to peg the CTM dollar 1:1 with the toonie, we could really get the ball rolling on something big here. Call it quantitative easing for quality patio furniture. Bretton Woods for plastic garden supplies.
The end goal of my Canadian Tire Money Revaluation proposal is to get my charity—jet ski rides for veterans—off the ground. The idea behind the charity is to cheer up veterans who are depressed and mopey about losing the war by letting them spend a heavily subsidized day with the real troops: lifetime members of the Jet Ski Dealers Association of Alberta. So you can see why I’m not a big fan of Canadian Tire these days. Honestly it makes me wonder if a corporation that hates the troops could be secretly funding Antifa.
We didn’t actually see any Antifa looters in the 97th Street parking lots. Though with the full camo wrap on the pickup, it’s unlikely they saw us, either. Call it a wash.
You see, our time as defenders of western civilization was cut short early on the third day.
I was just starting to drowse off listening to the Sirius XM radio, heavy from my second Boston Brute of the day, when I heard Prepper Bucket shout at someone from the back of the truck.
“This is for Wet'suwet'en, you dirty pigs!”
And then I heard the telltale pop of the potato cannon.
I jumped up but didn’t see any Antifa. Prepper’s pretty good with the potato cannon and this was the first time I’d ever seen her miss, and oh boy her shot went some bad, I’m telling ya. She’d cracked the windshield of an RCMP cruiser!
I was trying to get an excuse ready for the officer in my head––really just trying to figure out what the gender equivalent of ‘boys will be boys’ is (I’m not PC but I assumed the cop was)––when I remembered the Bren gun we had on us.
You better believe we took off like a bat out of hell.
My lead foot and Prepper’s marksmanship saved the day.
We made it home unscathed.
I think we got some good bonding in, but I wasn’t sure if she’d taken the right lesson from it. So later that night, I went up to her room to check on her and have a talk.
She wasn’t there when I knocked on the door and I confess I did a little bit of snooping. In her closet, I found little bits of wire and a small section of capped-off steel pipe filled with nails. Next to it were these two pamphlets: Industrial Society and Its Future and Juche: The Ideology of Self-Reliance. And you know, I just thought to myself, what a good kid, getting into home repair and all that there stuff.
“Daddy, what are you doing in my room?”
“You know,” I told her, “the plumbing in our house does need work. That tap in the bathroom’s just been dripping forever. I’ll show you how to do it right, though.”
I apologized for snooping and sat her down on the bed and somehow, under the watchful gaze of Tommy Sankara, I just let it all spill out, that I was worried she was becoming a liberal and what an awful thing that was to be in life. And you know what she did?
She laughed. The good kind of laugh, like when it’s all turning out okay.
“Daddy, I’m no liberal,” she said.
She went to her desk and started looking for a book she wanted me to read. I looked at one she had open and was currently reading.
“What’s this?” I asked. “Das Kapital? What’s it about, capitalism?”
“That’s right,” she said.
“It looks like a tough read,” I said.
“It is. Most self-professed, uh, readers of this book, never make it past page thirty-eight.”
You better believe I beamed with pride when I saw she was on page fifty.
“Here it is,” she said, “Just for you, Daddy Bucket.”
She handed me a thin little book, probably for kids. It was called Combat Liberalism by Chairman Mao. I guess this Mao is like the Chinese version of Hello Kitty or something. The book is full of jokes about how to recognize stupid libs. You know, sort of like a Jeff Foxworthy thing. A bunch of cheap cracks that alternate between knowing self-deprecation and attacks on what Prepper calls our ‘class enemies.’ I don’t really get the Chinese humour, but I certainly appreciate the effort.
Just having it sit on my night stand makes me less anxious about my daughter, Prepper Bucket.
You know, I think she’s going to turn out just fine after all.
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